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State Lines: A poem by Matthew Siegel

David RoderickFebruary 12, 2019Updated: February 12, 2019, 3:10 pm

Matthew Siegel Photo: Danny Bittiker

Matthew Siegel, one of San Francisco’s few remaining troubadours, demonstrates that a great poem can be fueled by heartbreak as well as love. “You can’t hire a crew to clean up your heart,” begins in desperation. The poem’s speaker enumerates the ways in which he cannot cleanse, or overcome, his heartbreak. After that half-comical litany, Siegel appears to surprise himself, or the poem’s “you,” by discovering a path away from the depression typically following the end of a romance. Only when the character leaves his writing desk to walk, ride the train and consort with other people, does he realize that he can return to the world, can “get from here to the next here.”